Africa’s critical minerals can power the global low-carbon transition

Abstract

The global shift towards low-carbon economies and societies is expected to result in a substantial surge in the demand for critical minerals. Endowed with at least a fifth of the world’s reserves in a dozen minerals, Africa can play a pivotal role in facilitating the global transition away from fossil fuels. In this paper, we argue that, for this to happen, Africa needs to act now to convert its natural assets into sustainable comparative advantages for a resource-based industrialisation. This will require proactive measures to ensure strict compliance with the highest standards of governance and transparency, as well as to uphold social values such as safeguarding basic rights of affected individuals and communities and sound environmental management to avoid falling into a new resource curse. This also requires a renewed global raw material diplomacy in which Africa manages the geopolitics of critical minerals, identifying strategic global alliances to unleash economic potential, create local content in the mining sector, develop domestic productive capacity, and foster sustainable development.